Back to Painting

Well I painted the sides of the dormer.  It looks like it was simple work, but it was really difficult to do, reaching underneath the eaves to scrape the paint without seeing what I was doing, and painting the same way. And I was sitting on a sloping roof to boot.  So it wasn't a lot of painting, but a difficult area to paint!  So now I am about to paint the front of the dormer.  A lot more to paint, but believe it or not, much easier.  I will explain.  This a "roof jack" which I made from 2x4's.  It gets nailed to the front porch roof and then a ladder will be laid across the top of it, and  I will stand on it and put smaller stepladders on it to paint.  

So this is one of the jacks and you can see how it supports the aluminum ladder.  This ladder is part of a big extension ladder taken apart.

So here's where you can see the beauty of this setup.  I have put plywood on top of the ladder rungs and now I can walk around painting as if I were standing on a sidewalk!  Easy Peasy.  What was not easy was making the two jacks then carrying them up and nailing them to the roof, then carrying up the large ladder and then cutting the plywood to fit and dragging all that up.  SO, a lot of setup work but in terms of painting I will be standing up or standing on smaller ladders and the painting itself will be so much more comfortable.  I am looking forward to enjoying the painting here!

Ken on the roof, just to prove he was not afraid to get up there!   :-). And, of course, an orange safety climbing rope fastened up inside the attic to a 2x4 nailed in place.  Always a safety line for this old guy!

And here is the overall scene so you can see how everything fits together!  I will do another photograph when I use the tall stepladder leaning up against the front of the dormer, with me on top, scraping  the loose paint before I begin painting.  It will be beautiful and look so new when it is done!